The Sudrians: Tales from the Engines

A Good Grip (1947)

After Thomas' incident in the snow, he and Terrance became good friends. The tank engine would always whistle cheerfully as he puffed past the tractor's field, the tractor couldn't respond back, but would always give a smile in response.

A few days after the accident, Thomas had to stop at a signal near the tractor's field. He waited patiently until it became green, but as the tank engine was about to leave, the icy rails wouldn't allow Thomas to grip and the poor engine's wheels spun and spun rapidly, trying to start his train. Thankfully, his driver noticed the issue immediately and allowed sand from his sandboxes to drop down and help him grip. That did the trick and Thomas' wheels managed to roll smoothly along the rails without much issue.

Terrance saw everything.

Later that day, Thomas reversed into Haultraugh heading back up the branch line. Terrance sat close by a small trailer behind him. He smiled cheekily at the blue tank engine. "I see you were having trouble near my field today," he snickered, "I've got to tell you the truth Thomas, but just because you like your rails doesn't mean they like you back!"

Thomas snorted. "I can't help it, and neither can my rails," said Thomas, "if this snow and ice had melted away by now, I would have a much better grip."

"So it's snow?" said Terrance, "oh dear, you poor engine, my caterpillars don't cause me issues though! They grip everything perfectly, you won't see any issues with me when it comes to snow and ice."

Before Thomas could respond, Terrance trundled away back to his farm nearby. The tank engine huffed indignantly. "Remind me not to ask him for help when I get stuck in the snow," he said to his driver.

"That's if you keep your snowplow on," chuckled his driver.

For the rest of the day and the day after, Thomas didn't whistle to Terrance at all, still insulted by his comments. Terrance felt a little sorry and one cold morning, he discussed it with his farmer, who drove him on the way back from Haultraugh, to the farm. "I think its best to apologise to him," he said.

"I think you should," smiled the farmer, "steam engines are proud machines from what I get told at the pub, a bit overdramatic to me I tell ya, but Thomas is a good sort all the same. Besides, he did apologise to you after his rude remarks on you."

"Yeah he did," said Terrance, "alright, I'll do when I next-- oh you've got to be joking."

There in front of the road was a big snow drift, too big to allow any vehicle to go around, meaning Terrance was cut off from reaching the farm. "Bother," said Terrance, "now how are we going to get back?"

The farmer looked around and saw something which smiled. "Our fields are here," he said, "only about three fields to the farm, we can cross the fields."

Terrance smiled at the idea. "Yes!" he said, "that can work!"

And the orange tractor then went into the field and began trundling along. Terrance smiled as he went over the bumps of the mud. "Nothing to it," he said, "my caterpillars are perfectly fine with this!"

However, the cold had made ice go over mud and make them rock solid, making it quite tricky for Terrance to go over them. A gate between two fields had a very muddy section with all the mud ice solid. Terrance went towards it none the wiser, he knew what mud was like when solid, but expected it to crunch and fall apart due to his weight. But the mud didn't, instead, it made the tractor jolt and bump up into the air.

"Oooooh!" cried Terrance in surprise. And as he landed funnily on the ground, his caterpillars groan due to the hard hit from the mud and Terrance felt himself be redirected into some brambles nearby. His farmer tried to stop him, but it was too late as broken brambles and twigs went in between one side of Terrance's caterpillars, causing them to buckle and finally break and come off. Terrance manage to stop before hitting the gate that divided the two fields, but Terrance wasn't going anywhere now.

"Owch," groaned Terrance, "I did not expect that."

"This ice and snow!" grumbled the farmer in great frustration, "I shouldn't have been so careless, now we need to get new caterpillars, but you'll be out of work Terrance I'm afraid."

This made Terrance quite depressed. The farmer walked the rest of the way to his farm to get help, Terrance sat sadly cold and alone in brambles. He then heard a whistle and Thomas came puffing from the other direction with a van train. He stopped when he saw the tractor in his predicament. "Are you alright Terrance?" he asked urgently.

Terrance explained his situation. "I'm sorry for teasing you the other day," he said, "ice and snow do cause issues for me as well, as you can see."

The tank engine smiled kindly to the tractor. "Cheer up," he said, "you'll be repaired eventually and I will make sure your parts get to you as soon as possible." This made the tractor feel a little better.

Terrance was soon rescued and put in his shed at the farm, he stayed there for a couple of days but was thrilled to see Thomas stopping next to his farm at his own will to allow the farmer and his workmen to get all the new parts to be dropped off personally for the tractor. He didn't have to do that, and for that Terrance has never teased Thomas ever again.

Why should he? Nowadays, others like Bertie and Percy do that for him.